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Anthropologie-Inspired DIY Nikola Utility Mini Dress (Cost: $4!)

Why Do Some Fabrics Dye Better than Others?
Thrift Store Style: My Casual Secondhand Summer

By now you guys know I’m kind of obsessed with Anthropologie. I love visiting their stores and browsing their gorgeous wares online.

This love exists despite my extreme cheapskatedness. I’ve never purchased an item of clothing from them. Instead, I’ve made a few Anthropologie-Inspired DIY copycats, like this clay top, and this maxi dress.

My Inspiration: The Nikola Utility Mini Dress

Anthropologie Nikola Utility Minidress
That’ll be $148.

I love this dress. It’s called the Nikola Utility Mini Dress and it’s fabulous. I love the color, the fit, the pockets(!!!), and those ruched sleeves that give it an unexpected touch of femininity.

My Before Piece: A Boring Dress from my Closet

Anthropologie-Inspired DIY Nikola Utility Mini Dress (Cost: $4!) Before
Meh.

I thrifted this dress for $1, figuring it would be good for work (aren’t boring work clothes just the worst????)

It’s beige. It’s bland. And I’ve never actually worn it to work or anywhere else.

The Refashion

Getting my boring blah blah beige dress up to Anthropologie standards was going to take a few steps.

  1. I needed to dye it to get as close to that sunny yellow hue as possible.
  2. I needed to add two more pockets.
  3. I needed to shorten & ruche the sleeves.
  4. I needed to convert that tie belt into a belt with a button closure.
  5. I needed to shorten the hem (just a tad).

Dyeing the Dress

I looked through my dye stash and found half a bottle of this:

bottle of rit yellow dye
Rit doesn’t sponsor me, and I feel this is foolish on their part.

I set up a dye bath with hot water, salt, the dye, and my dress.

Unfortunately, the dye wasn’t really taking, even though the fabric content is 97% Cotton/3% Spandex.

dye bath with dress and yellow dye
See, it isn’t working. That’s because you’re GARBAGE, Rit. GARBAGE.

So, I went back to my stash and grabbed a bottle of this:

bottle of orange dye
I can’t quit you, Rit.

I only added a splash of the orange dye to the bath as I was worried about the yellow not picking up at all.

I stirred my dress in the dye periodically for 40 minutes, then rinsed it in my washing machine and dried it.

Chopping Time!

Now that my dress was dyed to a yellow-orangish hue, it was time to make a few chops.

dress with sleeves and bottom hem cut off
So many chops!

The sleeves needed to be shortened, and I needed to remove that swoop from the bottom hem if I wanted to be true to my inspiration piece.

Those lower bits of the sleeves are going to come into play later, as well as those hidden straps that were originally for holding the sleeves up if they were rolled.

How to Sew Patch Pockets

I knew I wanted my patch pockets to be the same size and shape as the existing top pockets, so I traced one using pattern paper (you could use tissue or parchment paper too).

tracing pocket
Easy!

Then, I measured the seam allowance for the existing pockets.

measuring seam allowance on pocket
You can feel where the fabric stops on the inside.

I added those measurements to my pocket outline.

pocket pattern with added seam allowances
Making sense so far, right?

You can see I left that bottom angle flat for my pocket pattern. That’s going to help me get a nice sharp corner. You’ll see!

I pinned my pattern to one of the cut off sleeves, and cut out my two pockets!

cutting out pockets
Snip!

Here they are!

Cut out pockets
I marked the inside fabric with tailor’s chalk.

Now, Let’s make some pockets!

I laid each pocket with the right side facing down, and got to ironing.

First, I folded the top section over once (half of its allotted seam allowance), and pressed it down.

Ironing down top of pocket
Just take it one step at a time.

Then, I pressed the other seams inside as well, adhering to my pre-measured seam allowances, and finishing them off by folding that top part over again.

pocket with seams pressed in
A most pressing matter.

I ran the top part of each pocket through my machine.

stitching top of pocket
Just a lil straight stitch.

Here’s what it looked like on the other side when I was done!

pocket with top stitched
Future Pocket!

I tried my dress on, and pinned where I wanted the pockets to be. Then, I pinned them down, making sure they were placed at the same place (horizontally) as the top pockets.

dress with bottom pockets pinned on
Nice!

Time to stitch them into place!

stitching down pocket
Sew slllllowly and carrrrrrefully here, folks.

I decided to forgo the top flaps for these pockets as I only had two extra buttons from the sleeves, and one of those would be needed to make my belt happen.

The Sleeves

The technique I used to gather the sleeves is pretty much the same as the one I used for my recent tiered dress refashion.

I just set my stitch length to 5 and my tension to 6.

Make sure to keep long thread tails at the beginning and end, AND don’t backstitch. This will let you adjust the gathers later.

Here’s the view from the back of my machine.

Adding gathers to sleeves
The machine creates the gathers for you!

And here’s what those sleeves looked like when I was done.

gathered sleeve
Pretty, innit?

Of course, I couldn’t leave those sleeves with raw edges on the ends now could I?

I grabbed the very ends of the sleeves that I cut off in the beginning, folded the insides down and pressed them, like this:

Pressing sleeve cap
Lots of ironing in this refashion, huh?

Then, I turned them right side out, and pinned them to the gathered part, adjusting the gathers to make sure they fit.

sleeve cap pinned to sleeve
It’s all coming together!

Finally, I stitched the sleeve caps to the sleeves!

sewing sleeve cap to sleeve
This was an incredibly finicky process.

Now for that belt…

The original belt for my dress was a tie belt, but I needed to imitate the snap closure on the Anthropologie version as well as I could.

I thought I’d need to add a buttonhole to one end of the belt, but discovered the sleeve garter thingies were the same width as the belt!

I pinned the end of the sleeve garter to the belt, and stitched it down!

Pinning end of sleeve garter to belt
Why work hard when you can work smart?

I removed a button from one of the cut-off sleeves….

using seam ripper to remove button
Come here!

…and hand-stitched it to the other end of my belt!

I measured my waist and took the belt in from the back.

taking belt in from the back
Just a little whir!

Now for a quick hem!

This dress was already on the short side, so I folded the pinked edge of my hem under…

pinning bottom hem
Almost done!

…and stitched it down!

sewing down hem
The final whirrrr!

After a final (!) ironing, I was done!

Here’s my Anthropologie-Inspired DIY Copycat!

Refashionista Anthropologie-Inspired DIY Nikola Utility Mini Dress After Close up
I love my new white sunnies!
Refashionista Anthropologie-Inspired DIY Nikola Utility Mini Dress After
Not bad, eh?

I styled my new dress with a pair of vintage grey Bass pumps and white sunglasses.

Anthropologie-Inspired DIY Nikola Utility Mini Dress After Close up
It. Has. Pocketsssss!

The color is a good bit off, and I would have preferred to have added top flaps to the bottom pockets. But overall, I think I came pretty close!

refashionista in anthro knockoff closeup
Speaking of close.

What do you think?

refashionista Anthropologie-Inspired DIY Nikola Utility Mini Dress (Cost: $4!)

Anthropologie Nikola Utility Mini Dress: $148
Thrifted Dress: $1
Dye: $3
Savings: $144

refashionista Anthropologie-Inspired DIY Nikola Utility Mini Dress (Cost: $4!)

Cheers!

Why Do Some Fabrics Dye Better than Others?
Thrift Store Style: My Casual Secondhand Summer